Janitors target offices in Oakland for strike

Ray Delgado, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Monday, June 3, 1996

About 500 janitors plan to walk off their jobs at numerous Oakland real estate companies Monday night, launching what union organizers are calling a "rolling strike" that could affect hundreds of other companies in the Bay Area.

About ten companies in Oakland were targeted as strike locations after talks between the Service Employees International Union and Western Management Alliance broke down early Saturday morning, said Salvador Bustamante, a senior organizer at the union.

"The point is to disrupt the jobs as much as possible," Bustamante said. "The mood of the workers is that they waited a long, long time to get improvements."

Elementary school in Oakland opens time capsule from 1927San Francisco Chronicle

Brides of March walk through San FranciscoSan Francisco Chronicle

WildCare rescues Western scrub jay from rodent glue trapWildCare

The Regulars: The CarpenterJessica Christian

Massive fire in San Francisco's North BeachDavid Essling

Bustamante said that about 500 janitors will go on strike at 6 p.m. Monday for at least one day while union officials determine which companies will be targeted in the next strike.

Roughly 93 percent of the 4,700 union members approved the strike Saturday and are prepared to walk off their jobs in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Alameda counties if the union decides to stage further strikes in the next few days, Bustamante said. If it proceeds, the strike could disrupt more than half of the major technology companies in Silicon Valley, he said.

"We don't want to commit ourselves to just one thing," Bustamante said, adding that further strikes are likely.

Janitors have been negotiating since late March for increased wages and medical coverage for their families but have not made good progress with Western Management Alliance, a San Mateo consortium that represents the biggest janitorial contractors in the region.

Union officials are negotiating for a four-year contract that would provide a raise of about 4 percent and health insurance coverage for workers' family members, Bustamante said. The alliance has only offered a 2 percent raise and little on insurance.